Chapter 1

The leaves were turning once again, and there was a refreshing dash of chilliness in the New England Autumn air. October in Connecticut is really the most beautiful time of the year. It is the month where residents begin to brace themselves for Winter's onslaught. God provides this brief time of tranquil beauty in order to let everyone know what they'll soon be missing.

Tina and I were in the October of our relationship. In the nearly five months that we had started "seeing each other", she had really started to grow on me. At first, there was a period of adjustment for both of us. I needed us to slow down, to not overpower each other with too much sudden closeness. Tina, on the other hand, wanted to be totally enveloped by what she called "the first sweet fruits of a blossoming romance".

We resolved these conflicting needs by keeping ourselves more separate than she wanted, and less apart than I was actually comfortable with being. The shared lure of satisfying sex was the one connection that kept us both from throwing in the towel and giving up on this new relationship entirely. We ended up by constantly negotiating and renegotiating all sorts of compromises and adjustments, thereby retaining meaningful portions of what each of us felt was important, maybe even necessary. By each of us being willing to tolerate much that we would have rather done away with entirely, we managed to remain together. If only we could have been in agreement about what we each wanted to do away with.

Tina wanted us to share our lives, to spend time with each other doing things we both would enjoy. For her, sex was something two people did spontaneously, whenever the mood came upon them. She didn't believe in the concept of too much of anything good. She had no reservations when it came to shared togetherness.

I, on the other hand, needed long periods of solitude. Time to spend contemplating how I fit into the world around me. I didn't want or need anyone encroaching on the decisions I was constantly trying to make as to my future life's direction and purpose. Sex, for me, was best rationed, kept doled out in healthy portions, so as not to completely overtake or overwhelm all my other senses. Tina said I was the one with the New England Yankee mentality while she was one of those free spirited California beach girls.

As time went by, we were wearing down each other's rough edges, compromising in a healthy way, reaching for the middle ground to build a sustainable relationship. Tina would spend the night at my house on Monday and Tuesday nights. In return for that, we wouldn't see each other at all from Friday afternoon until Monday evening, when I'd come by to take her somewhere for dinner, or maybe over to my house, for something I'd cooked and an early night of making love and catching up. Tuesday's, after I dropped her off at her place, were day's when each of us pursued our own interests exclusively. Wednesdays and Thursdays were mostly open days, where either of us was free to suggest a shared activity, but also free to plan something we might wish to do separately.

Wednesday and Thursday, twice a month, had also become my buy/sell days. This was a time when I went off, alone, in search of bargains to buy and later sell, to generate all my trip expenses, and also, now, to earn some additional income. Having a girlfriend like Tina could be an expensive proposition. She had very little in the way of living comforts, being so far out on the poverty side of the financial edge with her sister, that I wanted, no, needed, to make up for that lack on the days when we were together.

All these compromises had left neither of us satisfied, but both thought there was enough left to make our continuing to come together an attractive enough proposition. It wasn't even a close decision for either of us to make. I knew that Tina was already in love with me. I saw it in her eyes, and in her reactions to my touching her whenever we were in each other's presence.

Of course, there was also the further complication of Tina's sister, Sherry, who lived with her, and who took up much of Tina's surplus time, energy, and concern. Whatever love Tina wasn't allowed to lavish on me, went to Sherry. Whatever lack of returned sentiment she felt coming from me, was, in large part, compensated for by the enormous outpouring of love that Sherry would constantly communicate to her twin.

We were a love triangle, but only in the most Platonic use of that term. Tina loved me, and she loved Sherry. Sherry loved Tina. I loved me, had a growing fondness for Tina, and a sick, suppressed, longing for Sherry. All this was further compounded by an even more deeply suppressed ambition, on my part, to someday have a sexual relationship with both of them. Together, at the same time, and in the same bed.

I managed to give noncommittal replies whenever Tina tried to bring up her sister's name to me. This was something she often did, probing, trying to get to the bottom of where all her suspicion's took her in that regard. Many times, as we lay spent in my bed, after a bout of strenuous, and very satisfying, lovemaking, Tina would bring up her sister's name to me, asking me questions, hoping to get me to confess something to her.

"So, are you really planning to leave at six tomorrow morning? Why not leave at eight or eight thirty, so I could spend the night here tonight?"

"I told you, I'm driving up to Maine. If I don't leave real early, I'll catch all the morning commuter traffic near Boston. I'm leaving at five anyway, not six."

"Tell me again why you couldn't take Sherry and me on any of these little trips of yours? We could spend our free time painting while you work. You could drop us off somewhere good, then pick us back up when you're done with what you do. You never seem to want to take us anywhere together."

"Why do you keep insisting on encroaching on the time I need to go off and earn my living? These trips I take are what allow me to pay for any extras that dating you costs. I'd think you'd encourage me to go off on more of them."

"Nice try, but don't you remember me looking over your shoulder at that bank statement you were looking at online? What was it, something like forty thousand dollars in deposits for that month? I know you aren't spending that kind of money every month, not even close to it."

"I have business expenses, you know I do. Somebody has to pay for all those chimes I've been delivering. they don't just give them to me, you know?"

"You don't want us with you. Why won't you just admit that you'd rather be all by yourself?"

"Okay, I admit it. I'd rather be alone. Satisfied now?"

"You don't really mean that. Even if you did, you know you'd miss me if I weren't here for you."

"You aren't here just for my benefit, and it isn't healthy for you to program yourself that way. We both like sex, and we're good together, in bed. We're also friends, so we sometimes like to do other things together. Not everything together, and not all the time though. I already explained to you that I don't do romance. You keep trying to elevate things beyond a level where I'm comfortable. I'm very fond of you, but I'm not ready to move beyond that point. You know you're going to end up disappointed and unhappy if we continue this to where we both know its now headed."

"You love making love to me. Admit that much at least."

"I do. Sometimes, with you, its the very best sex that I've ever had. I feel more for you than I do for anyone else, but that isn't the "L" word that you seem to expect me to say to you."

"Love, not the "L" word. I don't expect you to tell me you love me, because I know you don't. Love isn't something I necessarily need from you, not the emotion at least. I do wish you'd include me in your life more though. Sometimes I feel like you're deliberately shutting me out, away from everything really important to you. It hurts me that you keep everything like that to yourself."

Tina always tried to keep her anger and other emotions out of those types of discussions. She knew I'd use her acting upset as an excuse to end the conversation. She knew that because I'd done it to her many times before, in the beginning. This time though, she had a surprising change of tactics ready for me.

"Look babe, if it hurts you, then maybe we should quit discussing these types of things?"

"Would you be telling Sherry the same thing about the "L" word, if she were in bed with you and not me?"

"Whoa there! Where did that one come from? Why bring your sister into this?"

"Because I can't think of any other good reason you have for just being fond of me. I've never had this problem with any boy before. Usually, they're the ones trying to get me spend more time with them. Do you know I've had four different people propose to me?"

"From me only being very fond of you to telling me how many guys want to marry you, isn't that a very broad leap from one place to another? I also can't see any connection to those two things that points to anything having to do with your sister."

"We talk you know, Sherry and me. She tells me things and then I watch for them myself. I know how you look at her when you think nobody is paying attention."

"This is starting to get crazy. Tell you what, you can go take a shower, then get dressed and I'll run you back home, or else you can just get dressed and I'll drive you home like you are. I'm not going off into this whole pack of wild conjectures with you. You're the one who's in my bed. I haven't spoken ten words to Sherry, ever since she turned those pictures over to me three months ago. Name me one time when I even asked you about her, or when I ever invited her to do anything at all with us?"

"I'm not leaving now. You wouldn't have reacted like this if what I said hadn't struck a nerve."

"You don't want to keep striking this so called nerve that you think you've struck. The problem we're having right now isn't one that we're ever going to get resolved. You want more from me than I'm willing to give. I don't want to keep going over the same ground with you. It has become obvious to me that you won't ever be satisfied with what I'm willing to give you. That being the case, I think we should call a halt to this before it leaves us both with a lot of unnecessary bad feelings towards each other."

"This is it then, is that what you're telling me?"

"It certainly will be if you keep on hammering on me with this ridiculous nonsense of yours. You don't talk straight. I know what you want, and I've already told you how I feel about it. Either accept what I'm telling you at full face value, or else we will be through, completely. We're friends, and that is all I want us to be."

I could see her eyes beginning to tear up. About once a month things would break down during these discussions. I felt bad that Tina and I weren't close to wanting the same things from our relationship. Resuming having sex had been her idea. At the time we'd done it, she'd been full of promises about how she could accept a casual relationship, a friendship, just so long as sex could be a component of it too. I knew at the time that it would never work for long. Those situations never do work out, not long term.

"I'm going to take a shower. When I come out, if you haven't come up with any new ideas to change things so they're fairer, you can take me home and I'll stop trying to worm my way into your tiny little heart."

Saying this, she got out of bed and padded off to my bathroom. As soon as the door closed, I got up, got dressed, then gathered up my wallet and keys before leaving the bedroom for my living room. She'd know what I'd decided when she came out and saw that I'd left my bedroom.

Twenty minutes later she came out to where I was sitting. I noticed she'd packed up all her spare clothing. I also noticed she was taking her box of Tampons, her toothbrush, hairbrush, and the little bit of make up she kept in my bathroom for use on her overnight visits.

The ride back to her place was made in frosty silence. Neither of us had one word to say to the other. A line had been crossed, a line I knew would one day need to be crossed, or else erased. I hadn't reached the point where erasure of that line had felt like a viable option for me.

I watched as Tina exited my car, clutching her things tightly to her as she carefully stepped down from the taller than normal doorway of my large SUV. I could see the shed tears that had dampened both sides of her face. I said nothing to her. No goodbye's were going to be exchanged.

Several months before, Tina's painting of a trash canned lined alley had been sold by a New York gallery. It had sold for more than we'd first been told it would be offered at, and Tina's share, Twenty eight hundred and fifty dollars, had gone a long way towards righting her sinking financial ship. She had used the money to pay off all her debts and to stock up on needed art supplies and other necessities.

In the intervening months, Tina had completed one other painting that she liked far more than the one that had sold for six thousand dollars, and had two others, near completion, that actually stayed focused on one theme, all along the same lines as her previously completed one, but each painted from completely different perspectives.

She had borrowed my digital camera one day when we'd driven through the seamier side of New Haven. We'd stop whenever she asked me to, then she'd get out and start taking pictures of whatever had caught her artist's eye. The three paintings were actually a compilation of several different photos she had taken on that day. I had no idea if her new paintings were any good or not. They did nothing for me, but then, I hadn't been all that impressed with her earlier trash can effort either.

I had promised a woman in New York that she would get the first look at anything else Tina completed in a similar vein to the picture she had gotten placed in that art gallery.

Three months after our most recent break up, Tina phoned me to tell me she was now ready to show her completed art to the lady in New York. When I tried to give her the contact information for the woman, Tina reminded me that I'd promised to drive her there, once she had something she wanted to show.

I hadn't taken much convincing to decide to do her this favor. I'd missed seeing her all during this time. I had missed the sex, but I'd also missed having another person that I could interact with. We had truly been friends, and, whether or not I admitted it, I needed a friend to keep me from retreating too far back into myself. I had a tendency to live too much in my mind, and not enough anywhere else.

We had settled on getting an early start on Thursday, two days after her calling me. I'd made the phone call to the woman, and another to my New York dealer friend. I had purchased and saved some items I knew he'd be interested in acquiring from me. It hadn't really been enough to warrant making a special trip in to see him for, but, since I'd be in New York anyway, I'd arranged to come see him as well. I planned to go see him while Tina was busy meeting with the art broker lady.

When I pulled up in front of Tina's decrepit little hovel, she was already standing outside, alongside her sister, and a crated up box which I knew was where she kept her paintings when she needed to travel with more than she could conveniently hold in her hands. It was early January, and the weather was on the milder side of normal, maybe somewhere in the high twenties or low thirties. You could see your breath when you breathed out, but it didn't hurt your lungs to breathe the cold air in. I got out and wrestled the crate of paintings into the back of my Navigator.

"Sherry wanted to go to New York with us. I told her you wouldn't mind."

"Not a problem for me. How have you two been? Keeping your head's above water okay?"

"Sherry has one of her paintings that she's agreed to have this woman look at, isn't that exciting?"

"I guess. Look, I'm planning on dropping you guys off and then I've got some business with a friend that I need to take care of. My stuff will take about an hour to get finished. How long do you expect to be?"

"How should we know? You aren't planning on just putting us out in the street in front of her house and driving off right away, are you? I thought you'd come in and introduce us to her, and help carry the paintings in as well."

"Well, I already made an appointment to see this guy. What else would you need other than an introduction and my help carting your stuff up to her apartment. Her building has a super. For a tip of ten bucks I'm sure he'd haul everything up on his furniture dolly for you."

"For once, can't you just do what I'm asking? This is a special day for Sherry and me. We're both nervous enough already, without having to worry about getting lost or getting mugged while we're waiting outside for you to come back to get us."

"Fine. I'll phone him when we get closer to the city and set up a later time for us to get together. This means you're going to have to either wait out in the car, or else come into his shop with me and wait for us to get finished with all our business."

"Is this the same man who bought that other picture from you, the bird painting?"

"Yes, Glenn is his name."

"Good, I'd like to meet him."

"I'm just going to be in and out, business. This isn't a social call. You can come in and look around until I'm finished with what I need to do. After, if you want, I'll introduce you both, and you can talk to him for a few minutes. He's busy, trying to run a business and make his living, so don't take up too much of his time, okay?"

The visit with Muriel, the art broker went pretty well. She took all five paintings to sell, even though she didn't think any of them were as commercially valuable as the trash can picture turned out being. Tina didn't seem at all disappointed when Muriel quoted her a range in the asking selling price of between twenty five and thirty eight hundred for those three, similar in conception, but differently rendered, works she'd brought to show.

Muriel also liked Sherry's picture which was of a bunch of row boats tied in the water by ropes, but really held in place by the ice crust that had formed at the waterline. She liked it a lot, but said it would probably only fetch around fifteen hundred to two thousand dollars. Sherry got very excited when the art broker agreed to place her picture in one of the gallery's she said she had a very good relationship with.

The last painting, one of Tina's, was a painting of King Richard III. In it, he was riding a leather armored horse and was in the middle of a great battle between large opposing army's. He had a raised drawn sword and was dressed in elaborate purple courtier's clothing, with an ermine collar around his throat. You could see his disfiguring humped back as well as his cruelly twisted back and ungainly appearing shriveled up left shoulder, as he raised his right sword hand to ward off an attempted stabbing attack made by an enemy pike man.